Gaming Talk

This isn't a thread I've visited much, but I just came across this - comparing a well designed game with a ride on the Murray Coaster!

Journey and the art of emotional game design

Codemasters design director Nick Harper on how a game can resemble a Hollywood movie and an Andy Murray tennis match

There's lots of stuff about games that I didn't really read, then ..."I think it's okay to make the assumption that the team were trying to punctuate the game with these highs and lows, and as such, the experience for the player is far more rewarding and uplifting at the end. For the player, this follows what I've started to call the Andy Murray effect.....

I never got last year's version so having not played for a couple of years I decided to get back into it with FM13. Always use Arsenal of course and I've never been particularly successful at it. I once won the Champions League back on I think FM07 and celebrated as if it was real life! Other than that I think I remember a losing a league cup final but nothing else. Generally maintain 4th in league and no better so I suppose it's relatively realistic! I remember once doing so badly I got sacked before the end of the first season!

Trouble is I never seem to be able to devote enough time to play long into the game and usually only get through about 2-3 seasons by the time the next year's version comes along. It's taken me 3 weeks this time just to get through pre-season with all the setting up training and tweaking tactics etc. You read about people who get so addicted they can get through an entire season in a weekend but I'm happy if I can complete a season in a month.

I've never been that great at training schedules and tweaking tactics etc in the past. I've always tended to sign some players, pick a formation I like and let the players do their thing. Which perhaps explains why I've never been successful!

This time I've started to study every aspect of tactics and training much more. Right down to individual instructions around each aspect for each player. Which may explain why it took me 3 weeks to get through pre -season! After much experimenting and tweaking I seem tp have found something that's working. Lost my first game 2-1 to Man City but have since gone on a good run including a 4-0 win over Fulham, 3-0 win over West Ham and a 2-1 AWAY CL victory in Russia against Zenit.

My assistant manager is telling me the players are getting used to the favoured system and are enjoying their training schedules. There is no greater feeling in gaming than things working out well in Football Manager!

It's widely accepted now that trying to introduce 3D into the home has turned out to be a big failure. One of the reasons I chose not to go 3D with a recent TV purchase. Now focus is turning to higher definition like 4K but there's no content for it.

One thing you should be excited about is the Oculus Rift - virtual reality done right and affordable too. Some of the comments from CES this month:

IGN: "Oculus Rift virtual headset is a game changer"

PCWORLD: "Oculus Rift VR headset prototype works so well it’s a little scary"

CNET: "Best demo at CES by far"

THE VERGE: "I had the most incredible, inspiring, I'm not joking in any way, they blew me away on every level they could blow me away...like a drug experience..."

IllumiRoom looks awful. Will definitely need asprin on standby and I can't imagine it being particularly good for the epileptic girlfriend either!

Finished my first season of Football Manager as above. Finished 3rd in the league and lost the CL semi final to Man City - led on aggregate until about 25 minutes to go in the 2nd leg and then my tired team got overrun.

Probably the best season I've had on a Football Manager game in a long long time and definitely the best first season I've had. Was right in the title race until the final few weeks. In traditional Arsenal style I left the squad a bit short. While I was extremely lucky with injuries by Arsenal standards (only 1 long term injury to a player who generally wasn't in the first 11 anyway, although had just put an impressive few weeks together in his first real run of starts) when it came to the last month or so fighting for the title and playing the CL semi final I just ran out of players. Ended up playing the CL 2nd leg with a defence containing Jenkinson, Djourou and a regular sub midfielder at left back.

One defeat to someone low in the table (can't remember who, might have been Reading) during this period ended up costing me the title. Still the board offered me a 4 year contract and I made sure enough signings were made in the summer to make sure I don't run out of options again. Half way through the season and had some bizarre results. Beat AC Milan 4-0 in the CL group stage but lost 4-1 at home to Norwich for instance!

Oh the idea sounds pretty cool but in practice it looks like something that will induce a lot of headaches, vomiting and seizures. I can't imagine being able to cope with it for longer than about 5 minutes or so. Think it will be a gimmick that doesn't take off. Oculus Rift however sounds very exciting.

Just discovered there is a new Ashes Cricket 2013 game being developed for release on all platforms in June! Can't wait for this! Haven't played a decent cricket game since the last time EA Sports did it in 2002 I think (haven't played the Ashes 2009 version as I didn't have a PS3 or laptop capable of gaming until recently).

A lot of the social stuff - uploading videos straight away, streaming and interactive with friends gameplay etc just won't be possible in NZ. Same with predictive background downloading. Going to kill our bandwidth/data caps.